In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Monday, November 26, 2012

Let us kill each other!

For us living together
requires neither love nor mercy, but rules of conduct; everything be it
ideology, faith, or any system of thought, comes after that. Anything short of
it is at the same time inhuman and anti-human, and is like putting death
before life. [K.A.]

“Hey, Mr., you are
different. Your skin color is different. You wear clothes different from mine. Sometimes
you use shorts or just rags. You eat things different from mine. You play
different games. You sing and dance. You make and watch movies. You have places
of nudity and obscenity which you call freedom and enjoyment. You call them
art, fashion, and what not.

Your women live like you.
They behave like you. They wear dress like yours. Or they wear nothing. They go
out like you. They do everything like you do. They sing and dance like you.
They sing and dance in public like you do. You kiss them in public and they
you. You treat them like your equals.

You have installed a society
and system which is different from mine. You hold elections and make a
representative government which is different from mine. You have evolved
representative institutions different from mine. You have a system of political
parties which I don’t approve of. The world you live I don’t like at all. Why
are you different?

You or most of you abandoned
your beliefs. You compartmentalized your religion. You adopted the religion of
freedom instead. You give religious freedom to all and sundry. You make them or
let everybody believe as they wish. Practice their faith as they wish. To me
it’s just non-sense.

You have evolved philosophy
and seek truth. You have developed innumerable sciences and a lot of knowledge,
technology. You call it freedom of thought and expression. You believe in
freedom and free society. You live in freedom and die in freedom. I don’t
approve of it.

You are completely different
from me. I can’t bear it. Listen! Be like me. Or I will make you to be like me.
And, mind it, I will kill you if you don’t
do that. Be like me or I will kill you.”

Our world is populous with
different individuals, communities, and people. No one is similar to the other.
We have as many differences amongst us as many men and women there are on the face of our earth planet. Thus if
anyone sets out on a journey of unifying them all - different individuals and
their different individualities and their individual differences - into the
image of his own liking, no doubt every one of us in that case will be
constantly at war with each one of us. A
killing spree will follow.

Until and unless we learn to
live in peace with different people, their different individualities, their
individual differences, their different beliefs, and their different systems of
thoughts, there will be no end to it. That is what human civilization is all
about. We have laws and rule of law and protection of fundamental rights to
honor each one’s life and his freedom and to remain within the limits of our
own life and freedom. That is what human existence is all about.

Under the present
circumstances where the perpetrators of terror have unleashed a most brutal war
the hidden agenda of which is ultimately their own political supremacy, we have
two options clearly open to every one of us: kill each other, or live in peace
with each other.

We know every war ends at
total or partial annihilation of enemies, or most often at a truce. However
modern wars could never accomplish what ancient wars did though in very few
cases only: total killing of enemies. Thus modern civilization tried to
transform the old war into strictly an instrument of policy and succeeded in
confining its scope also, and it tried to rewrite the old truce into a permanent
settlement. That is, agreeing on the minimum conditions for a policy of
peaceful co-existence for all human beings regardless of the differences of
caste and creed, so to say.

On another plane, a little
while back we were in the process of reaching a universal agreement as to the
realization, recognition, security and protection of fundamental inalienable
rights and freedoms to all the individuals living on this earth. The terror war
has negatively impacted on its progress. It needs to be conscious of that to
make this world mutually livable. Life is a mutual social phenomenon, we need
to appreciate that.

Along with it, we need to
appreciate that as Nature and God made every people and individuals different
and as all the people and individuals too want to be and remain different, let
them be all different. That’s the beauty of life! Whoever is after destroying
it is enemy of both life and its beauty! Let us kill not each other! Rather,
let us enhance this beauty by not denying freedom to all!

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.